Enemy Mine

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An underrated sci-fi movie on DVD, who would¿ve thought?

By IGN Staff

The theme of two enemies learning to tolerate one another is apopular tale throughout history. A good example is the one of theAmerican and Japanese pilots in WWII who get shot down and mustlearn to coexist with each other in order to survive. Star Trekfans could remember the classic 5th Season Next Generationepisode of ¿Darmok¿ where Captain Picard must learn tounderstand an alien with an incomprehensible language in order tosurvive against a deadly foe.

But before Star Trek: The Next Generation there was EnemyMine, a severely underrated sci-fi movie from 1985 that wasdirected by Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, In the Line of Fire,Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, among others) yet it failedto make any sort of impact at the box office. Thankfully FOX isreleasing some of their older 80¿s sci-fi movies on DVD, andEnemy Mine can now be exposed to a whole new audience that mayhave missed it the first time.

The Movie

In the far future, mankind has finally conquered the stars andleft Earth far behind, but they could not leave war behind. Ourrace is in a furious battle against a reptilian alien species,and the movie opens up right in the middle of a skirmish.

Though the battle, Dennis Quaid¿s character (WillisDavidge) crashes onto a harsh planet along with one of the Aliens(Louis Gossett Jr., who is almost completely unrecognizable undermake-up). When Davidge¿s shipmate dies, he is alone on aremote planet with the one person he does not want to be with.

When the two first meet, they are blinded by the hatred ofeach other that war has burned into their minds. All they canthink of is eliminating each other, but they have more to worryabout. The planet that they are on is hostile and deadly,complete with strange creatures and an unstable environment.Soon, survival becomes more important than annihilating eachother.

That is when the movie starts to get good.

The two foes begin to see through the hatred and start to workon understanding each other in order to break through thecommunication barrier. They begin to work together to get food,build shelter, and start to become less of enemies and more offriends.

As time passes, Davidge begins to look more and more like amountain man, and their friendship grows deeper until they arefluent in each other languages and they care for each other asbrothers.

The development of that friendship is what makes the movie sogood. There¿s no evil space cruiser bearing down on them,there aren¿t hordes of giant flesh eating alien bugs chasingthem every couple scenes, there is just two former enemieslearning to accept each other and eventually become the best offriends.

There are problems with the movie, some of the sets lookreally cheap and some of the lines are just plain silly (¿You don't know diddily-poo about humans!¿). It's kindof easy to look past all that and enjoy the story, which Irecommend people do.

Enemy Mine is one of my favorite sci-fi films, and it¿snice to see it out on DVD and not forgotten. If you haven¿tseen it, at least give it a rent. You may actually grow to likeit.

7 out of 10

The Video

As with Alien Nation (also released this week from FOX),this is probably the best the movie will ever look. Some sceneslook a little soft, and there were one or two lines still on theprint, but overall it¿s a good anamorphic transfer eventhough the movie was originally shot Super 35. 7 out of 10

The Audio

If there is one thing you can say about Wolfgang Petersen, it¿sthat his films always make great used of sound. Das Bootand Air Force One still have two of the best DD 5.1soundtracks on DVD. While it doesn't live up to thosestandards, Enemy Mine features a decent mix for what it is. Whenthere is action on the screen, there are some okay panningeffects in the forward channels and once in a while the rears geta little attention. For 4.0, it¿s pretty good.

6 out of 10

The Extras

Let¿s see, we get a trailer and some behind the scenesphotos. Even though the movie only pulled in $4.2 million, theycould have at least pulled together a couple more extras.